by Colin Arning
She stands at the threshold, the door yawning open as if exhaling years of dust and overwhelming silence. The house leans toward her, aching in its stillness, its bones brittle with time. Floorboards creak under her steps, not in protest, but in recognition.
In the kitchen, the ghost of her mother hums over a forgotten pot. The air is thick with dust and the phantom warmth of a gas stove left burning. The wallpaper curls, exposing the raw plaster beneath, wounds never tended, stories never finished.
Upstairs she finds the remnants of her childhood pressed into the walls. A handprint, much smaller than she remembers, smudged into the banister. The sliver of a mirror catching her face in fragments. A whisper of laughter, then a sob. The house does not forget.
She kneels in the hollowed-out bedroom where the moon spills silver onto the warped, wooden floor. Her fingers brush against the empty space where a bed once stood, where she once dreamed, where she once cried.
She doesn’t know how long she stays, but when she rises, dust clings to her sweaty palms, the echoes settle, and the house, at last, exhales.
